2nd March 2009: Gunmen attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan

The Sri Lankan cricket team attack occurred on March 3, 2009, when a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers, part of a larger convoy, was fired upon by 12 gunmen, near the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan. The cricketers were on their way to play the third day of the second Test against the Pakistani cricket team. Six members of the Sri Lanka national cricket team were injured. Six Pakistani policemen and two civilians were killed. These were the first attacks on a national sports team since the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants in 1972.The attack was believed to have been carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed and/or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the outlawed militant groups with close links to Al-Qaeda.Sri Lanka's assistant coach Paul Farbrace, who is British, told the BBC: "There was a lot of shouting and people hitting the floor and when I got to the floor I realised that the blood that I could see was coming from me - luckily superficial wounds."The Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara told Australia's ABC radio that he and his team mates probably owed their lives to their bus driver."We had an amazing driver who just kept driving the bus straight through all of that to the ground and that's probably what saved us."Officials in Lahore said two members of the Sri Lankan team, Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana, were sent to hospital.

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